


Working in Synchronicity

by Eligh



Series: I Fix Your Shit [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 01:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4588599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eligh/pseuds/Eligh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite everything, Bruce thinks that he’s a pretty lucky guy. After all, Tony’s here. </p>
<p>Snippets of their life together, from their socially-awkward first meeting to a little house in Boulder Canyon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working in Synchronicity

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: self-slut-shaming, vague mentions/allusions to domestic abuse, vague depictions of torture, dealing with PTSD, destructive behavior brought on by depression. 
> 
> Okay, so, this isn't the long-promised and awaited-for sequel. Sorry. _That_ is something I am still working on, and focuses on C/C like the original. Still no promises about when it's going to go up. But it's not dead. 
> 
> Anyway. I didn’t originally plan this interlude, but the science boyfriends poked enough at my brain that they were interfering with sequel writing and backstory and so, whatever. This is an intermediary fic, an utterly supplemental fic; if you don’t want to read this, it will in no way harm your understanding of OMG Robots 2 (working title).

Sixteen is a pretty big year for Bruce.

At sixteen, he’s (finally) legally emancipated from his latest cluster of a foster home, and with his newfound freedom he promptly procures an enviable position with one of Shield’s weapon research branches. Being an actual, certified genius, he’s promoted (within six months!) to the head of his own division within said research branch.

Once given free rein of his division, Bruce promptly proves his worth by making unforeseen advances in the field of Hydra weapon detection, as well as developing an energy-based disruptor that, once implemented, has the real possibility of turning the tide of the war.

It’s a pretty good couple months, professionally.

On a more personal note, however, Bruce is still _sixteen_ , and therefore alongside his successful military contracts, he has a few hiccups as he adjusts to life as a legal adult.

It takes him about three months to really settle into what’s at least a moderately healthy and more realistic living pattern, but once those three months are up, he feels like he has a pretty good handle on things. He only _almost_ gives himself scurvy—apparently man cannot exist on cold pizza and ramen alone—and still can’t cook anything much more than uncomplicated pasta dishes or toasted cheese. But he remembers to pick up vegetables and fruits from the commissary now, and only occasionally nods off at his desk after forgoing sleep in favor of Scientific Progress.

And really, all things considered, he’s actually happy for the first time since before he can remember.

Sixteen isn’t all takeout and All Night Science, though, because sixteen is also when Bruce meets Tony Stark. In retrospect, he’s pretty sure that this last event was, if not the most important thing to ever happen to him (there’s an argument for the most important event being the incident when he was six, and then for the incident with the radiation) then maybe the most—present, motivating, life-altering. It is certainly the best.

And Bruce knows what would qualify as ‘the best,’ okay? He’s had precious little of it, so he treasures what he’s got. Tony’s unequivocally at the top of his list, and sure, Clint and Phil are up there, too. There used to be others, but he can’t really think about them (about her) without sinking down into melancholy.

But Tony. Bruce would be nowhere without Tony.

~

The first time Bruce lays eyes on Anthony Edward Stark, he has spent the morning meticulously adding carefully measured drops of one classified chemical agent to another equally-classified chemical agent. He’s witnessed eight separate miniscule explosions, the last of which nearly took off his eyebrows, which is the exact opposite of what he’s been aiming for with this particular experiment. He is soot-smeared and pissed off and has a headache, and therefore is not particularly thrilled when a grinning, coltish, black-haired teenager comes tripping into his lab.

The kid’s trailed by four people, first of which is a harassed-looking older man whose eyes are glued on a tablet and who bears a striking resemblance to the kid. The remaining three are scowling suits, presumably bodyguards.

They first approach one of Bruce’s assistants, a jumpy but dependable recent MIT grad (Bruce finds that he gets less flak from subordinates if they’re only a few years older than him) but it quickly becomes apparent that they assumed Josh was Bruce, and when the correct identities have been sorted out, the kid rounds on him.

Bruce clutches his clipboard a little closer to his chest and forces a smile as the kid swans over. He’s not a fan of people invading his space, especially when the day’s already been one long frustration, but if this kid (or, more likely, his father) is a patron, he’s duty-bound to entertain him.

“Ah, hello?” he ventures, and the kid stops sharply at about two inches too close for proper courtesy, gives him an absolutely lecherous once-over (Bruce misses the eye roll from the older guy because he’s busy being mortified) and sticks out his hand.

“Tony Stark,” Bruce is informed. Bruce then manages to freeze just long enough before gathering his wits enough to return the handshake that it becomes painfully awkward, but Stark just flashes him an understanding smile and pumps his arm up and down far too enthusiastically. “You must be Bruce Banner.”

“Um.”

“You’re the guy that broke through the force generators Hydra’s been using to hide their bases,” Stark prompts, and this Bruce can work with.

“Well, I was just the first, there were a bunch of people working toward it, you know—”

Stark’s grin widens. “Yeah, but you used their tech against them! No one else was even close to reverse-engineering their trackers. You’re good.”

Bruce blinks. “It was just a matter of utilizing the Rosen Theorems. As long as you countered their decoy energy signatures with a biomech tracer, everything just fell into place.” He shrugs. “It seemed obvious.”

The kid gestures to him, arms wide. “Finally,” he says, “someone who speaks English.” He half turns and addresses the guy who’s sort of half-hovering near his shoulder. “Dad, you hear that?”

“Sure kiddo,” the guy says, but doesn’t look up from his tablet. “Do what you like.”

Stark takes a breath, his face clouding over for a moment, but Bruce sees the second he decides the fight’s not worth it. Instead he turns back to Bruce and smiles. “You’re _very_ good.”

Bruce chuckles, his nerves starting to unwind. “Well, um. Thanks?” He ruffles his curls self-consciously, and Stark’s dark eyes track his movements.

“Also, your work on electron fields being used to disrupt the polarity of Hydra’s latest round of energy weapons is fucking awesome,” Stark adds, and Bruce promptly forgets that he’s not the type of guy that really gets to make friends.

~

If pressed, (and Clint will, and does) Bruce claimed that it was not—absolutely not—love at first sight. Instead he’ll talk about minds working in synchronicity, about inside jokes developed over the course of months laboring side-by-side, and about the slow realization that when someone mentioned the world, Bruce began to picture Tony Stark.

~

“Hey, Bruce, big guy, how’s it hanging?”

Bruce looks up from his tablet, blinking, but then lets his smile grow when he sees who it is.

They’re nineteen (or, Bruce, at least, is nineteen. Tony’s seventeen and ten months, which is, and Bruce quotes his idiot friend, ‘close enough for government work,’ which is actually utterly ridiculous, but so’s Tony, so this is nothing unusual) and have been near inseparable for the past three years. Bruce is pretty well aware that the generals who supervise their interactions and talk about them in hushed tones behind their backs have decided that they’re getting a lab together as soon as Tony hits eighteen and his trust fund is released.

It’s exciting, and it doesn’t hurt that Tony’s blossomed into quite possibly the most beautiful person Bruce could ever imagine. He’s grown into his lanky limbs, while lean muscles seem to have appeared along his arms and stomach overnight. He’s always had a swagger and the ego of ten men, courtesy of his family’s reputation and his father’s permissiveness, but he’s softer when he’s around Bruce, less aggravating and more endearing. The fact that he’s a whip-smart genius is just the icing on the cake, and Bruce won’t lie and say he isn’t completely infatuated.

He’s willing to ignore it, though, because discounting all of that, Bruce has never worked as well with anyone as he does with Tony, even though their specialties and interests only overlap peripherally. Tony’s more of an engineer; he likes to get right in and close to the issue, the physical problems. Machines, bots, their gross motor programming, Tony likes it all. Bruce prefers the abstract, the numbers, the minds behind the machines, the minute biology of their hybrids.

Their collaborations have already produced a clean-energy prototype that’s due to be implemented in Shield bases the continent over, and a treatment for one of Hydra’s nastier radiation-based weapons. It’s pretty impressive for a couple kids, really.

But being their usual prodigious selves doesn’t seem to be on Tony’s mind today. Instead, he’s frowning very slightly and tapping his fingers against a jean-clad thigh, fidgeting more than usual. It’s subtle, but Bruce has spent a great deal of time watching and learning his friend’s mercurial moods.

“Hey, yeah, hi,” he rasps, and his voice is a little rusty from disuse. He glances at the clock; he’s been in the lab for hours. When did that happen? Bruce clears his throat. “What’s wrong?”

Tony widens his eyes, aiming for innocent and managing only to look manic. “What? Nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine, why wouldn’t I be fine? I hacked the latest development specs for Shield’s new military oversight bots, they look awesome. I mean granted it’s just programming right now, but I could see eventual development of chassis, they could be fully ambulatory, field-ready, whatever. What are you doing? Is that the readouts from the disintegration cannons? It is, isn’t it—” and he steals the pad from under Bruce’s fingertips, still babbling as he scrolls through the data.

“Tony,” Bruce says, worried now because while Tony’s been known to jabber, it’s not usually like this. He reaches out, gentling his touch to Tony’s forearms, and it’s only then that he realizes Tony’s shaking, just a little. His concern ratchets up a notch. “Hey, sit, what’s wrong?”

There’s a moment’s pause and then Tony turns his hand over, catching Bruce’s and swiping his thin, clever fingers over Bruce’s broader ones. He’s always touchy-feely, so this is nothing out of the ordinary, but the way he’s quivering is just—disorienting.

“Dad died,” Tony says, his voice pitched a little too high.

Howard’s been in and out of hospitals for as long as Bruce has known the Starks, but—oh, oh shit. He hadn’t realized this last round with the cancer was so dire, not that Tony ever says anything. “C’mere,” Bruce breathes, reaching out. Tony collapses toward him without another thought, wrapping his arms around Bruce’s back and clinging. Bruce shushes him even though Tony’s not saying anything, just whispers quiet support into the top of Tony’s head, stroking his fingers through his hair. “You’re all right,” he promises. “Hey, I’m here, I’ve got you, you’ll be all right.”

“Yeah,” Tony rumbles against his chest, choked up. Tremors are running through his body, and Bruce knows that as much as Tony actively butts heads with his father—as frail as Howard’s body’s been in the past years, his mind was always as sharp as ever—Tony obviously dotes on and respects him. Tony’s always wanted to be Howard when he grows up.

“I’m here,” Bruce repeats, soft and soothing as he can.

“I know,” Tony breathes, tucking himself in closer. “You’re not gonna leave me, yea?”

“Never,” Bruce promises. He means it with every fiber of his being.

~

They’d spent the night once talking about their families, the four of them gathered around a bonfire in the packed dirt lot in front of the house. Bruce still remembers that night with a twinge of pain—none of them had ever had it particularly easy.

Clint told them about Barney, about the orphanage and how later the Swordsman had ‘taken in’ the Barton boys, made his own set of rules outside of Basic that, had Shield known about it, probably would have gotten the lot of them court-marshaled. Phil’d looked horrified at the culmination of his tale, and had practically dragged Clint into his lap for the remainder of the night.

Phil (with his hands firmly planted on as much space as he could take up on Clint’s thighs and back) talked hesitantly about the man who made him, the man whose face he wore, the man who’d died saving his ‘children’ in the firestorm that ended New York.

Swayed by their honesty, Bruce touched on his mother’s violent end, his father’s lack of remorse, the foster homes. Tony’d held his hand tight and kissed him when he fell silent, and then immediately launched into a story about his mother, about her clear love for her family and the drunk driver that took her from them when Tony was ten. Bruce remembers being startled that Tony didn’t talk about his dad, because Tony almost never talked about his mother. He’d told Bruce once, long ago, that his memories of her were still too painful. Bruce understood the sentiment.

After, Tony’d glanced at Bruce and said, “The day my dad died was good and bad.”

“How could it have been good?” Clint had asked. Tony’d shrugged.

“That was the day I realized I didn’t wanna just fuck Bruce over our lab table.” Bruce sputtered, his hands flexing against Tony’s sides. Tony grinned at him, his dark eyes lucid and clear, something that had been happening more and more by that point. “I realized I was in love with him, so. Y’know. Revelations and shit.” He leaned in and kissed Bruce softly, his eyes drifting shut before pulling back and shooting Clint and Phil a wicked smirk. “It worked out, you know?”

~

Bruce is newly twenty-one when one afternoon he glances up from his tablet and finds Tony staring at him from across their shared workbench. He raises an eyebrow, and then apparently on reflex, Tony blurts out, “You’re gorgeous.”

Bruce blinks slowly, his eyes wide behind smudged glasses. Tony’s starting to look panicked, and the tiny shop Shield assigned them to in Phoenix is suddenly far too stifling. Their knees were knocking together under the table—or would be, if Tony hadn’t suddenly gone entirely still.

“What?” Bruce asks, because he was under the impression that if they haven’t addressed the elephant in the room in the five years they’ve known each other, they never would. He was sorta figuring on just dealing with the sexual tension between himself and his best friend for the rest of his life. There were worse things, after all.

Tony’s still staring, very far from the suave flirt who makes the lab techs swoon, and Bruce can’t help it; he starts to laugh.

“Oh god, you’re actually nervous,” he giggles. Tony frowns, and like that, the awkwardness breaks.

“That’s the not reaction I was aiming for.” Tony sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes. “I never shoulda listened to Pepper.”

“No, no.” Bruce stops him Tony starts to stand up and turn away, catching his fingers on Tony’s wrist and tugging lightly. “Tony, hey, no. I just wasn’t really expecting you to be so, um. Blunt, I guess. Though I’m not sure why I expected anything else.”

“I’m very good at blunt,” Tony grins, looking down at their hands. He leans a little closer across the bench (a screwdriver goes careening off it with a crash) and Bruce tightens his grip. “So,” Tony asks, softer than usual. “Is this a yes?”

“Did you actually ask me a question that can be responded to with a ‘yes’?” Bruce asks in return. Tony, apparently reverted back to the cocksure, arrogant Tony that he is, is suddenly up and rounding the table, crowding Bruce against the edge and leaning down to kiss him. Bruce doesn’t mind in the least. It’s good, and right, and inevitable.

~

“I’ve never,” Tony whines later that night, and writhes a little in Bruce’s lap. Bruce stares at him, at his beautiful face, the long line of his neck, the scraggly beginnings of a goatee. He sucks in a breath and scrabbles his hands against Tony’s hips, fingers slipping in the sweat-slick slide of him.

“Never… never what?”

“God, Bruce,” Tony says instead of answering, “’Big Guy’s’ taken on a whole goddamn new meaning.”

Bruce huffs out a laugh and reaches between them, his fingers sure. Tony swears and sweats and cries out, and Bruce feels like a god.

After, Tony’s flopped across more space on Bruce’s bed than should be physically possible, breathing hard, his eyes wide and pleased. “You’re it,” he announces, and Bruce pauses in the doorway to the en-suite bathroom, damp towel in hand.

“I’m what?”

Tony drifts his eyes over toward him and tilts his head so he’s looking at Bruce upside down. “You’re the only person I’ve let fuck me. You’re the only person I want to fuck me. You’re the only person I want to fuck.” He blinks, once, slowly. “Okay?”

“I’m—” Bruce takes a stuttered step toward the bed. “I mean, the _only_? Was I the… Tony, I—” He knows he wasn’t Tony’s _first_ first; he was there for _that_ backlash when Tony turned sixteen, but the first for _this_? Maybe.

Tony rolls over and fixes Bruce with an unimpressed look, one of his best. “I’m not _that_ much of a slutbag, Bruce. I am aware of what monogamy is. And you’re _you_ , after all.”

Bruce shakes his head and finishes his walk to the bed. He pushes gently against Tony’s shoulder and Tony goes, rolling onto his back, though he’s quiet, his dark eyes fixed on Bruce’s face. Bruce wipes away the worst of their mess from Tony’s skin gently, and chews on his lip. “I don’t think you’re a slutbag.”

“You think I’d spread my legs for anyone but you? I might suck cock with the best of them, but I’m not a complete whore.” There’s a thread of hurt in Tony’s bluster, a hint of insecurity. Bruce is pretty sure he’s the only one who’s allowed to see this particular side of Tony.

Bruce feels the familiar curl of anger in his gut at the self-depreciating words, but quells it easily—more easily than he can remember doing recently, actually. He sees what’s behind the façade, and can’t help his small smile as he tosses the towel in the direction of his laundry basket. “You’re being deliberately offensive. You think you’re going to scare me off?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says with narrowed eyes. “Am I worth your time now that you’ve popped my cherry?”

Bruce smirks and flops down on the bed, purposefully dragging their skin together, making Tony gasp. “Will I be worth yours after you’ve popped mine later tonight?” he growls into Tony’s mouth.

“Yeah, yes,” Tony breathes, and arches into their kiss. “You’re always worth my time, Big Guy.”

~

“Who’s Pepper?” Clint had asked once, innocent as he assisted in the mop-up of an oil spill courtesy of Tony’s latest foray into robotics. Phil’d vacated the shop immediately upon seeing the damage, grumbling something about ‘butterfingers’ and trailed by an inquisitively beeping Lucky, but Clint had stayed to help mitigate the damage. “I heard you talking about her, earlier? Before the whole…” he trailed off, smiling, and eyed a spray of oil on the ceiling.

Bruce had frozen, unsure of what to say, but Tony’d just smiled ruefully in return and leaned against the ‘vette, wiping his hands ineffectively on a filthy rag.

“She was our friend,” he said. “She was in LA when everything went tits-up.”

“Oh,” Clint murmured, his smile falling. “I’m—”

Tony waved him off. “It’s okay. Pepper’s resilient. If anyone survived, she would have.”

Bruce smiled a little, silently agreeing, and dragged his mop through a puddle of hydraulic fluid.

~

When Bruce first meets Virginia Potts—when he’s twenty-two and moving a truckload of his belongings into Tony’s swear-to-god _mansion_ on the California coast—he has to admit that he’s a little cowed by her ruthless competency. And by her four-inch stilettos, and her knock-out tailored business suit, and the fact that she hands him a thick file that turns out to be his entire recorded history, delivered with a ‘we’re just looking out for Tony’ and an enigmatic smile.

(Also there’s the fact that Tony seems a little infatuated with her and has been talking about her pretty much nonstop for the past year and a half, ever since he hired her to micromanage his life on his last visit to his familial home, but that’s an entirely different story, and not really relevant at the moment, _thanks Clint_.)

But it turns out that Pepper really _is_ just interested in what’s best for her employer, and after roughly forty-eight hours warily circling one another, she quickly comes to the decision that what’s best is apparently _Bruce_. It doesn’t take long for them to bond after that, and within two months, they’re each other’s closest ally.

It’s Pepper that Bruce goes to when Tony slips increasingly into one of his benders. She talks him down and reminds him that Tony’s a fragile flower (well, less a flower and more of an absolute ass) and then prompts him to remember the good about his partner. The moral compass, the thirst for knowledge, the shining brilliance. She makes Bruce remember that he’s the one who’s fallen in love with a narcissist, and helps him calm himself when all he can see is red.

Bruce, of course, isn’t perfect either—because seeing red’s a reality of his life. So it’s Pepper that Tony goes to when Bruce turns introverted and snappish, when Bruce’s anger issues bubble up from nowhere, when Bruce throws prototypes against the wall and yells. Bruce tries, he really does, but sometimes he feels like anger’s written in his cells, and he’s glad that Tony has a shoulder to lean on during the rare occasions when he actually scares him.

It takes less than six months of living in California before neither of them are sure what they’d do without Pepper. She’s a stabilizing influence, that’s for certain, and it only takes a year or so before Bruce absolutely can’t imagine life without her.

Case in point:

“We can dress ourselves, Pep,” Tony complains. Pepper’s calmly knotting Bruce’s bowtie and doesn’t look at her actual employer, though she does arch one perfectly manicured eyebrow and meets Bruce’s eyes with a knowing look. She’s dressed in a stunning blue dress that only serves to accent her eyes, and her pale red hair’s cascading in curls down her back.

“Your cummerbund’s inside out,” she points out, still smirking at Bruce. Tony huffs and inspects the thing before unclipping it sheepishly and flipping it over. Bruce hovers his hands over his own, but Pepper frowns gently and shakes her head; apparently he dressed himself correctly.

Bruce still feels pretty firmly out of his element, but apparently schmoozing with generals is part of the monetary process, and he’s less than inclined to squander Tony’s money on his own pet projects. Gamma’s a fascinating field, but not really in Tony’s wheelhouse.

“You are not our keeper,” Tony protests. “We are adult men.”  

Pepper looks thoughtful as she turns toward Tony, and settles a graceful finger on her chin. She cocks her head. “What are your social security numbers, boys?” she asks after a moment, and then leans forward and straightens Tony’s pocket square before shooting Bruce a severe look.

Tony hesitates, screws his face up, and glances at the ceiling. “…Five?”

“Now I know there’re more numbers than that,” Bruce murmurs, pointedly not meeting Pepper’s eyes. “Like, at least five or six more?”

“A social security number has nine numbers,” Pepper informs them with a smirk.

Bruce presses his lips together in an effort not to laugh. “We’re more concerned with other things?” he ventures.

Tony waves his hand carelessly in agreement. “Alright, fine. That’s what you’re here for, Pepper.” He pouts a little. “Please don’t make us go to New Mexico by ourselves.”

“We don’t even have funding for New Mexico,” Bruce interjects. “It’s not even a decision right now.”

“And when you _get_ funding,” Pepper says with another calm smile, “you will need someone here in California to run your company. Someone’s got to be the face, and even on good days, neither of you can remember to leave your labs to sleep.”

“That’s what _Obie’s_ for,” Tony pouts. “Me and Bruce, we need you.”

“And I will be a short plane-ride away, helping Obie like he _asked_ me to.” Pepper tells them both, and then latches her arms through their elbows. “All right, boys. Put on your smiles and dance for the military.”

Bruce and Tony both frown, but let her drag them from the room and into the elevator.

~

They get the funding, and Bruce and Tony pack for an extended stay in New Mexico. Pepper does not go with them, despite their increasingly manipulative begging (mostly on Tony’s part, though Bruce isn’t entirely silent, either) and waves them off the ground with a smile when they board one of Stark Industries’ private jets.

Looking back, Bruce wished he pushed harder. If Pepper’d been with them, he’s pretty sure things would have turned out differently for everyone.

Tony wouldn’t have been so bored, and Bruce would have been reminded to emerge occasionally from the lab. There wouldn’t have been the fights, and the mistrust, and the anger.

Bruce really fucking _misses_ her.

~

“This,” Tony announces histrionically as he flops backward onto their rumpled comforter, his arms wide enough to knock the picture of Bruce’s mom askew on the table next to their bed, “is ungodly boring.”

Bruce rights the picture and firmly squashes the surge of annoyance that wells up low in his belly. It’s been a long day, and he doesn’t need one of Tony’s patented sulks. “I’m enjoying myself.”

“That’s cause you’re working on gamma, you dick,” Tony tells him, throwing a dramatic elbow over his eyes and pouting. “I have to _order in_ parts, Bruce. There’s not a decent mechanist for a hundred miles.”

Bruce sits next to him on the bed and takes a deep breath. “Gods forbid you’re inconvenienced a little, Tony. We knew the constraints when I took this assignment.” It’s been almost a year in New Mexico, and Tony’s just been getting worse over the past months.

“Whatever,” Tony snarls, and flops over, turning his back. Bruce frowns down at him. Are they actually having a fight? Like a real, actual, we’re-gonna-yell-at-each-other-now fight? It’s usually all passive-aggressive sulking silences when Tony’s upset. This is… weird. His frown deepens, but before he can get in another word, Tony’s shooting up on the bed, gesturing wildly.

“It’s fucking _New Mexico_ , Bruce. There is. nothing. here.”

“It’s a military base,” Bruce points out, but Tony’s not having it, throwing Bruce a scathing look before curling up again, his face stony. Well, apparently this _is_ a fight. The dark simmer that always sits deep in Bruce’s mind sits up and starts to take notice.

“Yeah, and you’re its star attraction. You think they’d give their resident radiation expert some goddamn _booze_.” Tony’s flop grows more pronounced, and the simmer starts to boil.

“Oh, so this is about the _alcohol_ , is it?” Bruce growls, getting up and walking a few feet away. He can’t even… Tony _knows_ how much that upsets him. He pauses, staring out the window at the wind-swept desert, and in a low undertone, hisses, “What, you’re jonesing already? Pissed they made you dismantle your fucking _still_?” It’s a low blow, and he knows it. Whatever.

“There’s nothing else to _do_ here but drink!” Tony’s getting agitated, pushing away from the bed and pacing. After a moment, Bruce hears his footsteps cross the room and then Tony’s hovering behind him, crowding into Bruce’s personal space. Bruce can smell him, desert dust masking something sweet, like—like perfume, the kind that the tech Kara wears.

The boil’s rolling, now.

“You don’t ever talk to me,” Tony accuses. “You’re too busy with _Betty_ —”

_Hell_ , no. “Don’t bring her into this, she’s an excellent—” Bruce is now consciously focusing on relaxing his fists.

“—don’t come home ‘til fucking gods know when—”

And that’s it, that’s all, folks. Every man has his breaking point. Bruce spins and takes a step closer, inwardly smirking when Tony’s eyes widen. “Oh, that’s great, coming from _you_.” Bruce reaches up and pushes Tony’s shoulders. It’s meant to be light, but Bruce is angry and Tony staggers back a step. “How close are you with Kara? Or maybe David? They follow you around like puppies, and you’ve always been willing to give into flattery.”

“Oh, that’s the way to do it, isn’t it,” Tony spits. “So what if I’ve been getting some on the side? You certainly don’t give a shit, not enough to fucking _talk to me_ , not enough to go home for a few days. You know that we haven’t been back to California in _months_. To our _home_ , Bruce. Our friends? You remember them? You remember _Pepper_?”

Bruce sees red. Everything beyond Tony’s flippant ‘so what’ is just so much white noise. “You’re cheating on me?”

The slow smirk that creeps across Tony’s face is unbearable. “What would you do if I was? Would you try to win me back? Would you do anything at all?” He looks down, eyeing Bruce’s fists, and his smirk widens. “Yeah, you would do something, wouldn’t you? It runs in the family, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t,” Bruce warns him.

Tony sneers. “Punch me, go ahead baby, I can take it, I deserve it, you wanna hit me, don’t you?”

“ _Don’t_.”

Tony juts his chin out and points a finger at his jawbone. “One hit.”

Bruce takes a slow breath. He will not rise to this. “If you’re so miserable, then leave.”

Tony drops his hand and they stare at one another for a long, long moment. “You mean it,” Tony says finally.

“Let’s not delude ourselves,” Bruce tells him. He feels a little sick.

The silence that stretches out between them is, in Bruce’s opinion, the longest silence ever recorded since the beginning of time.

It’s Tony who breaks it. “Fine. Yeah, fine.” And with that, he spins on his heel and stalks out of their bedroom.

Bruce doesn’t go after him and in fact doesn’t move from the spot by the window for over an hour. He doesn’t so much as twitch when he hears the front door close softly, the click of the latch more final than the any end program Bruce has ever run.

The boiling anger’s gone, and in its place there’s nothing. He’s just blank.

~

It’s really no surprise (to Bruce, anyway, though his lab partners seem both shocked and terrified) when, two weeks later, there’s an accident.

It’s dumb, really it is, and Bruce could have easily avoided it. Stepped left instead of right, or moved half a step faster.

But it doesn’t really matter, because the truth is that he didn’t—couldn’t—care enough to avoid it, and now he’s stuck behind timed locking doors, watching the needle creep toward the red and ignoring Betty and Leonard’s increasingly panicked shouts from outside the steel-reinforced tempered glass.

“Tell Tony I’m sorry, tell him I love him,” he says, and Betty nods quickly, her mascara smeared around her eyes. Leonard tells him to shut up, that they’ll get him out, just hold on and he can tell Tony himself—

Bruce closes his eyes as he feels his cells start to vibrate. Oblivion will be better than the cloying numbness of his past weeks, of that Bruce is pretty sure.

~

Of course oblivion doesn’t come.

Instead, Bruce’s world turns green, and he realizes that there are far worse things on earth than he’s ever dreamed.

~

“Bruce.”

Bruce ignores the summons, because what’s Ross gonna do? He wonders if it’s time, if they’re finally going to escalate their experiments on him, start peeling him apart to see how much abuse he can take. He has the sick feeling that he’ll be able to take an awful lot; it’s not like he can get hurt, not permanently, not anymore. He knows that he’s been lucky so far. Complete isolation’s nothing in the grand scheme of things.

“ _Bruce_ ,” the voice insists, and there’s the sound of the lock sliding back. Bruce recoils from the light, an involuntary whimper escaping from his throat. The Other Guy sits up and takes notice—gods, please no, don’t let it out—but then there’s a warm hand suddenly on his back, a touch of kindness like he hasn’t felt in months. Bruce cringes. This isn’t—he looks up, and oh, oh _gods_ , how—

“Hey, Big Guy,” Tony says, soft and so, so scared. “Hey, I’m here.”

“What?” Bruce asks, because Tony left, left for good. They told him, they said he might as well stop asking, cause there’s no way Tony’s got _Bruce_ on his mind, not with how he’s supposedly fucking his way through the ranks of Southern California, free at last.

“They lied to you,” Tony says, and slips his arms around Bruce’s chest. “I sat at home for two weeks and alternated sulking and sobbing at Pepper, and then when I tried to come back they told me you wouldn’t let me on base, and then that you were sick, and then that you’d been transferred, so I bought the fucking place and you’re _my_ contractor, now.” He’s fierce, furious color high on his cheeks behind ragged week-old stubble.

“I’m a monster,” Bruce says, but Tony just shakes his head.

“I saw the footage,” he whispers, and pulls Bruce tight. “You’re a miracle.”

~

In the end, Ross gets arrested and court-marshaled, dishonorable discharge, the whole nine yards. If Bruce were a more forgiving man, he’d maybe feel a little guilty about all the favors Tony calls in with his contacts in the military to pull that one off, but Bruce isn’t feeling particularly forgiving at the moment.

~

The first night back in their on-base house is—awkward, at least at first.

Tony emerges from the shower in a wash of steam, the towel wrapped around his waist familiar and faded, electric pink dolphins romping on a neon blue ocean. He pauses in the doorway to the bedroom, eyeing Bruce, who’s sitting stiffly on the edge of their bed.

“You okay?” he asks. Bruce shakes his head sharply, just once. Tony frowns. “What—”

“I haven’t been here in months,” Bruce interrupts. “At first I couldn’t, and then they wouldn’t let me.”

“You couldn’t?” Tony looks honestly confused, and Bruce doesn’t know what to say. He scratches at his head, the stubble from where they’d shaved it unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

“You left,” he says finally. “I… couldn’t.”

Tony’s face falls and he stumbles hurriedly toward the bed, hands reaching out. Bruce catches him, still a little shocked that he has this back, has _Tony_ back, that he’s free to go if he wants, that he’s not locked up and scared.

“Baby,” Tony breathes. “Big Guy, I’m so sorry, I thought we’d fight for a little and then you’d come get me or, or I don’t know, I’d come back, I guess, I never thought, _never_ —”

“I know,” Bruce says, and presses his face against Tony’s bare stomach. “I missed you so much.”

~

Their relationship is strained painfully for a long while. They don’t work on anything scientific, and instead spend their time just getting used to each other again. Still, it’s a couple weeks before Tony’s able to keep his hands to himself, and another couple before Bruce is willing to instigate touch—it’s an interesting balance, that’s for sure.

But it finally turns more normal, their existing together again, and Bruce is starting to think about what he’s going to do with himself going forward. They stayed on base because it was easier, because they could keep monitoring Bruce’s other—the other guy—and because it was just easier to stay put.

“You told me once,” Tony says one night, his forehead pressing against Bruce’s, their legs tangled in their scratchy Shield-issued sheets, “that you would never leave.” Bruce stiffens. Are they going to talk about this?

“No, no,” Tony soothes. “It’s not like that, Big Guy. I’m not mad or anything. I just want you to know… I won’t. Do that again. No matter what, I won’t leave you.”

“Okay,” Bruce says. Tony kisses him then, and Bruce can almost feel the barometer of their relationship slipping into ‘good’ again.

Tony still loves him, despite everything. There’s gotta be some good in that.

~

But nothing decent can last forever.

The bombs start to go off, and there’s no fighting it, not really, not with those types of chemical signatures.

Bruce only feels a little guilty about doping Tony and loading him on a plane. It’s not like the other guy can get hurt, so Bruce is the clear choice to stay and man the arrays. The base will be targeted, and Tony’s not safe, not here. He’ll join him later in Malibu, and they’ll pick up Pepper and retreat to one of the other bases, because there’s no way Hydra tech could wipe out _everything_.

~

“ _Bruce_ ,” Pepper says, her voice tinny over the sat-phone. “ _Bruce, are you there?”_

“Yeah, Pep,” Bruce says, juggling the phone and a jug of water. He plops it down at the entrance to the bunker, nods at one of the final people scuttling inside, and eyes the mushroom cloud that’s bloomed on the horizon. He’s not worried about radiation poisoning, so he’s volunteered to man the base from out here.

_“LA’s gone, Bruce,”_ Pepper says, her voice cracking. Bruce grimaces. He knew this already, but she sounds scared. She probably just found out.

“Hey,” he says into the phone. “You’re safe, yea? You’ve got the bunker, and Malibu’s not really a strategic target. Tony and I’ll be there before you know it. _Tony’ll_ be there in—” he checks his watch. “I put him on a plane, he should be there in—”

_“Plane?_ ” Pepper asks, something deeper than fear suddenly in her distant voice. Bruce freezes halfway across the compound. _“Bruce, the last planes headed out from New Mexico all got shot down. I thought Tony was still there with you, tell me he’s still there with you—”_

“What do you mean, the last planes got shot down?” He whispers. He’s clutching the phone too tight, his knuckles cracking. “Pepper! What do you mean, the last planes—”

There’s a sob from down the line. _“Over the Rockies, Bruce, **please** tell me he wasn’t on one of those planes—”_

Bruce doesn’t hear anything else, because everything goes green.

~

He’s not sure how long it took for the other guy to find Tony. The only thing he remembers is rage, and terror, and then later, so much blood.

Bruce doesn’t like thinking about it.

~

They go to Boulder because Bruce isn’t sure what else to do, and he’d been here once a few years ago and remembered that it was nice. He can’t take Tony back to New Mexico—even if he’d wanted to go back to the base, he’s under the distinct impression that there isn’t anything back there to return to. His reasons are mostly the same regarding California, though he’s pointedly not thinking about the gaping hole where LA used to be that he saw on the camp’s sat-feed after the Other Guy had let go of his hold on Bruce’s mind.

He can’t think about it. Can’t think about who might have been there, what else they might have lost.

He wishes he could try to ask Tony what he thinks—Bruce has always been better at planning long term while Tony’s more of a live-in-the-moment type, but Tony isn’t any help, not right now.

Bruce doesn’t blame him, of course he doesn’t. After seeing the conditions of that camp, after he’d come to? Of course Tony was… not well.

It still hurts, though. Because it’s been three weeks of heavy silences broken by screaming, and because it tears through both halves of Bruce’s shattered psyche when Tony’s still cringing away whenever Bruce brushes their hands together. It’s not comforting when Tony can’t sleep (and therefore guaranteeing Bruce’s own restless nights), or when he screams every time Bruce has to hold him down to change his bandages.

It’s hard, that’s all. And this on top of the fact that the Other Guy’s restless after being let out for so long. He’d gotten the taste of blood back at that Hydra base, and Bruce really isn’t sure what to do about that. Tony would know, if only Tony would talk.

Bruce has found them a little house halfway up a canyon leading away from the city. There are formidable cliffs front and back and a little stream that works well enough for fresh water. It’s good enough for a temporary place. Tony seems a little calmer under the roof, too. Maybe. If he’s honest with himself though, Bruce hasn’t felt this disconnected from him in a long time. He thinks it’s even worse now than it had been when they were furious at each other, back before the accident.

Today is Tuesday or Wednesday or something. Bruce isn’t sure, and he guesses it doesn’t matter. What _does_ matter is maybe getting them some food—they’re running out of the canned stuff he’d found in the house, and Tony keeps freaking out—for lack of a better descriptor—every time Bruce mentions going into town to forage. So he’s found a jacket and some boots and a fishing rod, and is now spending his third hour standing shivering on the edge of the bank, crunching through days-old icy snow, and seeing if there are any fish.

To be entirely honest, Bruce has no idea if you can even fish in the winter. Do fish hibernate or go into… stasis… or something? It’s not like he’s an outdoors-y type. He’s a fucking physicist, thanks. The closest he’s ever been to nature is the time one of his foster parents decided to take him on an ill-advised camping trip, and he’d spent the entire weekend sulking in his tent, and all he remembered from that experience were mosquitos and rocks under his sleeping bag.

He shivers. This is useless, and he’s pretty sure there’s another couple cans of Spam in the cupboards, so they can eat that tonight and he can figure out more food stuff tomorrow, and maybe another night of quiet will help Tony’s head calm down or whatever and—

“Fuck,” he whispers into the frigid air. His voice escapes in a steam of breath, and he sucks in a sharp breath. “Fuck, what am I gonna do? I can’t do this.” He drops the rod and sits heavily in the snow, crunching through the thin layer of ice. “We’re gonna die.”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “This is your goddamn fault.”

_Not fault. We save him. Take care of him._

Bruce clutches at his head. “Go away.”

_No. Puny Banner cannot—_

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”

“Bruce?”

Bruce snaps his head up and stares; Tony’s standing, swaying slightly, in the open doorway at the back of the house. “Baby,” he says, pushing to his feet. Tony’s not wearing a shirt, just too-loose jeans. His feet are bare and Bruce still can barely look at the heavy bandaging that covers his chest, even though he’s the one who changes it daily. “You’ll catch cold.”

“I’m okay,” Tony murmurs, stepping out of the house and into the half-frozen thin layer of snow on the ground. He doesn’t seem to notice the cold against his feet.

“No, no,” Bruce says, catching him by his arm and guiding him back inside. He leaves the fishing rod behind him on the bank; he doesn’t think he was going to have any luck anyway. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

“I’m okay,” Tony says again as Bruce guides him to sit down at the rickety kitchen table. “Bruce, sweetheart, I’ll be okay, okay?”

Bruce blinks at him as he sinks into his own seat. It’s the most Tony’s spoken since the camp, and it’s the first time he’s done anything more than stare vacantly, unrecognizing. “Are you back with me?” he asks, a little hesitant.

“I don’t know,” Tony tells him. His eyes are wide and haunted, but he looks more coherent than he has since Bruce kissed him goodbye in New Mexico, weeks ago.

“Ton—”

“Okay so I’m not actually okay,” Tony interrupts. “They did a thing. Something. Cybernetics I think, I haven’t looked at it closely because every time you—or I—touch my chest I start fucking _seeing_ them, leaning over me with scalpels and—” he cuts off, breathing heavily. Bruce stares at him, and after a moment, Tony sucks in a breath and goes on. “They were in my _head_. Things are, uh. Fuzzy, sort of, now. I don’t have the clarity I did, and I keep getting confused, and I think I’m still there, but I know I’m not, I know—” He reaches out and grabs Bruce’s hand.

“I know I love you. You came for me. I’m sorry I can’t—I can’t help you. Right now.”

“Tony,” Bruce says, swallowing down his sob. “Baby, we’ll be okay, we will.”

There’s silence for a moment. “Well,” Tony begins, and then pauses to take a deep breath. “So you’re being weirdly optimistic. I like it.” He forces out a laugh, and Bruce closes his eyes.

~

Things…

Well. They don’t get all that much noticeably better, at least not right away. But they stabilize. Tony is occasionally able to help Bruce fix up the house they found, and in the space of a couple weeks they manage to weld some metal sheeting to the roof to stop it from leaking, and Bruce spends an itchy week stapling insulation to fill in gaps.

Tony won’t leave the shack. It’s a little frustrating, as there are perfectly nice houses abandoned in towns just fifteen minutes both east and west of them, but Bruce decides that he’d live in a cave if it helps Tony’s head.

~

They’ve been on their own for nearing a year.

Bruce is exhausted. He spent most of last night stroking Tony’s hair after soothing a particularly violent nightmare and most of the early morning running inventory of what he’s going to need to find the next time he can manage to sneak off to Boulder. It’s a long list, and he’s not going to be able to find everything they need in Nederland anymore. Tony’s just going to have to deal with the bigger city.

Speaking of—his more aggravating half has been clanging around the workshop for a couple hours, but has now gone worryingly silent. Bruce sits up from his slouch in their room’s armchair and wraps his arms around his knees.

He’s just about set to go see what Tony’s gotten himself into this time when—

“Hey, Bruce, Big Guy, c’mere a sec, I need you to confirm I’m not seeing things again.” Tony’s shouting from downstairs, probably out in the front yard.

“Oh, hell,” Bruce grumbles. Tony hasn’t had hallucinations in months. He stands and makes his way downstairs. It’s a foggy morning and it looks like Tony’s blown the fuses again, if the way the lights don’t respond is any indication. Bruce hopes it’s the fuses, actually, because broken bulbs would be just _another_ thing to get in town.

So it’s dark as he makes his way through the kitchen, and of course he manages to stub his toe on one of the chairs someone’s left hanging out in the middle of the room. Bruce swears. “Dammit, how many times have I told you to leave the lights on, Tony, you’re going to kill yourself wandering around in the dark, I—”

He stops dead as he steps onto their excuse for a front porch, because Tony’s not alone. The guy standing in the dirt in front of their house looks about as shocked as Bruce feels, and his hands are positioned carefully away from both the bow and quiver that’re strapped over his back. His eyes are wide and blue, and once the shock fades, Bruce can see the hope in them. See it clear as day.

“Holy shit,” Bruce says.

“We’ve covered that,” Tony grins.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at [eli-rawley](http://eli-rawley.tumblr.com/)! Woot.


End file.
